“Agh,” Barry groans, rubbing his head with his sweaty and dirty palm. He shifts his body’s weight to another angle,

“I can’t feel my – my fucking back. What the fuck” Barry tries to sit straight, but it feels as if it backbone is sprained. The island doesn’t give him much time to recover as the giant creature crawls in front of him.

Barry’s eye widens and the ‘spraining back’ wasn’t there anymore as he jumps to his feet. He could feel his heart beating against his chest as he comes face to face with the massive creature. He looked like an ant in comparison to the beast. Barry knew the only way to survive was to order his brain to function, to demand solutions, but he knew there was nothing he could do to beat the animal in front of him.

He tried to run, but his ankle gets stuck into something, and again, he falls flat on his face. He looks down to free his ankle, but waves of anxiety take over him as he realizes his ankle was already free.

“Fuck” Barry whispers, knowing damn well what that means.

He had sprained his ankle.

Barry couldn’t even move his leg at this moment. There was no way in hell he could run. Instead, he starts to drag himself away from the creature as it starts crawling on its four legs towards Barry. Giant drops of saliva drop from its mouth and hits the ground with a thud. From between its mouth. Barry could see the sharp, pointy, and disgusting teeth waiting to crush his body in between them.

“Wait wait” Barry holds his hand in the air. To his surprise, the creature stops and looks at him.

Its giant, red eyes look at Barry with no emotions.

“I - I’ve been stuck on this island for – for a day. I haven’t even eaten since last 24 hours or more than that,”

The creature tilts his head as if waiting for Barry to make a point.

“I guess, what I’m trying to say is – is that,” Barry takes a deep breath, “i won’t even fill half of your stomach, you know what I’m saying?”

He looks at the creature. It seems calm as it stands on its hind legs and looks at Barry.

“Right?” Barry smiles,

Before Barry could make any move, the creature screams. Barry covers his ears but couldn’t protect himself from the salvia that slapped his face. The beast looked horrifying as he growled and the spikes opened from behind his neck.

As Barry recovered himself from the monster’s shriek and buckled up to put up a ‘fight,’ another ear-deafening voice filled the atmosphere. He covered his ears again and fell to his knees. Barry could feel the sound waves traveling through the ground and inside his body.

The sound suddenly stopped, and a loud thud made the whole ground shake.

Barry looked at the creature, but it wasn’t standing anymore. Instead, its lifeless body was on the ground as blood kept out of its giant, bunny-looking but not cute at all ears.

“What just happened?” Barry smacked his head a couple of times, convincing himself that he imagines all this, but it was a little hard to ignore the giant creature that was right in front of his eyes.

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“Stay away!”

Barry’s eye widened, and he looked at the creature.

“What?” He asked the dead, lying monster.

“Stay away!” He heard again.

He couldn’t believe his ears. The dead animal was telling himself to stay away?

‘It can speak?’ Barry thought to himself.

Before he could bend down and take a close look at the monster, a gentle pull dragged him back, and he fell flat on his ass,

“I told you to stay away!”

Sitting on his ass, he looked up. Someone stood right before him, but it wasn’t a creature this time. It looked like a human. The sun shone from right behind them, he couldn’t make out the face or the body, but he was sure it was a human.

“When I say stay away, you stay away. Got it?”

Barry nodded dumbfounded.

“Good.”

He stood up as the figure moved away from him and sat on their knee to look at the creature.

“Dead.”

Barry heard as he looked at the person from behind. The person wore loose military trousers and a shirt. It looked like a regular shirt Barry would wear. The boots they wore looked as if someone from the army officer would wear; thick, brown, and strong material. He also wore a helmet.

“Who are you?” Barry asked,

The person stood up and turned around to look at Barry. All Barry could see was a black helmet. The human took off his helmet, and Barry’s eyes widen as he saw her hair fall generously and end up right below her waist. Her blue eyes looked straight into Barry’s, and her mouth formed a pout,

“Freya.” She said, and Barry almost laughed at himself for not picking up the feminine voice,

“Hi, I’m - I’m Barry,” He replied and put his hand forward for a handshake that Freya ignored.

“How did you find this place?” Freya asked, folding her hands on her chest,

Barry, embarrassingly pulls his hand and puts it on his aching back,

“I didn’t find it,” Images of the cruise and his friends flashed before his eyes. It almost felt like an eternity, “Our cruise got sucked into a water storm and I woke up here.”

“Our? You mean there are more?” she asked. He couldn’t help but notice a hint of urgency in her tone,

“No. I mean yes. I mean, I’m not sure,” she twitched her eyes as Barry continued, “I mean, yes there were more. There were four of us. I mean, there are four of us. We got lost.”

“Are they here?” Frey asked, pointing at the ground,

“I’m not sure. Wait, I’m sorry, who are you?” Barry had enough of questions. He just found an actual human being that didn’t look completely insane, and he wasn’t even being given a chance to speak.

“Freya.” She replied.

“No, I know you’re Freya. I mean to ask how did you get stuck here?”

“I didn’t.”

Barry touched his forehead. This was going to be difficult; he thought to himself, “Okay, how did you end up being here? Where do you live outside this island?”

“Island? You mean Mystiriódis?”

“Mystiriodis?” Barry repeated, and Freya nodded her head.

“This,” she pointed at the island but no direction in particular, “Mystiriodis.”

“Okay, sure. How did you get stuck here in ‘Mystiriodis?”

She looked at Barry and rolled her eyes, “you ask too many questions.”

“And you don’t reply to any of them.” he countered back.

Freya kept staring at Barry as he looked over at the monster that still lay dead behind her.

“What did you do to him? How did you kill him?”

“Easy,” Freya smiled, and for the first time, he noticed the subtle freckles on her nose and cheeks, “This.” she waved a weirdly looking, brown-colored flute in front of Barry’s eyes, “They can’t bear the sound of this.”

“That’s crazy.” Barry looked at the flute and tried to touch it, but as he moved his hands closer, Freya slapped his hand away,

“Mine.” she put the flute back in his military trousers, which looked quite loose on her.

“Fine, geez,” Barry put his hand in the air as if he’s surrendering, “I wasn’t trying to steal it.”

Freya rolled her eyes and turned her back on Barry, “You never know.”

He couldn’t help but think, ‘what’s the attitude for?’ and mentally rolled his eyes harder than Freya.

Before there could be any more conversation between them, Freya starts to go in the opposite direction of Barry.

“Hey, where are you going?” Barry asks,

“Mind your own business!” She yells back, and Barry gets furious.

Taken back by her comment, Barry blows air out of his mouth and shouts back, “Well, I will!” but Freya doesn’t reply.

He starts walking in the opposite direction. He takes two steps and he hears a loud, deep growl coming from the same path he’s walking on.

“Wait for me!” He yells and limps in the direction of Freya, placing a hand on his aching back.